The Affair: Cristiana's Story

by Aidèe Jaimes

  Pulling out a beautiful serving plate my mom brought for me from Mexico on her last trip, I carefully and lovingly set up the nachos. Ground beef, tomatoes, avocado, shredded cheese, cilantro, jalapeno and sour cream on top of big restaurant style chips.

  “Nachos!” Jess says rubbing her hands and goes to sit at the table with Jane.

  Jane, looking a little gray, smiles at me as I place my work of art on the table. Then, not a second later, she proceeds to throw up into it.

  I whip my arms back just in time to avoid splatter, but seeing the mess and hearing her heaving has me running to the water closet. My head prickles as I hear her all the way there, and I can feel the sweat spewing from my pores as I fight back the nausea.

  It’s a while before the commotion in the kitchen clears. I feel awful leaving them out there to deal with the mess, but I just can’t handle it. Never have I been able to comfort a heaving friend in need. Even Mia’s throw up has me head first in the toilet every time.

  When I finally come out, I’m soaked, from sweat and from the constant splashing of cool water on my face.

  Both girls are wearing different clothes. Jane is laying on my couch and Jess is almost done cleaning up the kitchen.

  Jane looks up at me. “Sorry, girl,” she says. “It stinks in there.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help. Are you feeling better?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t feeling sick before. I don’t know what happened. Is it okay that we borrowed your clothes and showered in your shower? And took new toothbrushes from your linen closet?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Jess hasn’t asked for permission to do anything in my house since I’ve known her, she’s free to do as she pleases pretty much.

  “I know exactly what ails you, my pukie friend,” Jess says as she comes out of the kitchen smelling like bleach. “Your man knocked you up.”

  My eyes bulge and my mouth drops as my head snaps to Jane.

  Jane sits up so fast she almost loses her balance and both me and Jess are at her side.

  “I’m fine,” Jane waves us away. “And I’m definitely not knocked up. I can’t be. The doctors said it was almost impossible because of my POS?”

  “Piece of shit?” Jess asks in a whisper to me. Of course, miss fertile wouldn’t know anything about it. I on the other hand am all too familiar with it.

  “Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome!” Jane rolls her eyes. “I just had a tumor removed six months ago. Besides, Lucie is coming next week.”

  “Lucie is the baby Nate and her are adopting,” I inform Jess.

  Jane and Nate were supposed to have adopted another little girl in February, but the mother backed out at the last second. It was a devastating blow to her; she’d wanted so badly to have a baby. Then Lucie came up. Her mother had already given her up. She is three months old and living with a foster family. Everything is set. She will have a little girl in six days. And if Jess is right, another child on the way.

  “Well,” Jess nods her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, other than you may need to hire some help.”

  “I am not pregnant!”

  “You know what? I have some pee sticks at home from last month when we had the big scare. Remember, Cris?” she asks me and I nod. “I’ll be right back.”

  “She thought she was pregnant with her fourth?” Jane asks me amazed.

  “Yup. It would have been fine, if anyone can handle four it’s her.”

  Jess is back in a flash, and pushing Jane into the bathroom.

  “Fine, I’ll take your little pee test, but don’t be mad when I waste it with a negative result.”

  Jess smirks and crosses her arms, looking smart. “I know my shit.”

  After the trickle of pee and the toilet flush, there is only silence as we stand outside the door and wait. Jess taps her fingers against her forearm and looks confident. “She’s preggers,” she whispers to me and I shoosh her.

  Five minutes turn to ten, and when she still doesn’t emerge, I knock on the door to check on Jane. “You okay, hun?”

  A sob comes through loud and clear and Jess is messing with the knob.

  “We’re coming in!” she yells as she uses her hard thumbnail to unlock the door.

  Jane is standing in front of the sink, eyes red and watery, huge tears streaming down her perfect chocolate skin. She wipes at her face and sobs again. I take her in my arms and try to console her as Jess takes the stick and confirms what she already knew.

  “Yes!” she says punching the air. “I freaking knew it!”

  Jane cries harder. “Two babies? How am I going to handle two babies? And I already have Nate!”

  “Aw, don’t cry?” Jess tells her, and taking her from me leads her back to the living room. “It’s all going to be okay, you’ll see. Besides, it’s almost a year before you’ll have this one. And them being so close in age may be hard as fuck at first and you may go insane, but eventually it will be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  “I’m sorry I threw up on you,” Jane cries.

  “Nah, don’t worry, I have three kids. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.”

  Jane smiles at her and then they start talking amongst themselves so low I can’t hear them anymore. And just like that, they are best friends.

  “How is she?”

  “Sleeping. Thank you for helpin’ her, chère,” Nate says and comes to sit with me at the patio table.

  “I can’t really take credit for it. Jess did most of the work. She had to go home because it got late.” Looking at my watch to confirm, it’s eleven-fifty-two.

  “Well, thank you for letting us have this conversation here. We wouldn’t have been able to talk in peace with all those people over there. But you didn’t need to come outside.”

  “It’s all right, I like to. I do it almost every night. The silence and the cool breeze really clear my head.” He nods in understanding. “So, who’s there? At the Jensens’ I mean.” I try to ask the question innocently, but Nate easily reads between the lines.

  “Bo’s not there, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

  “Oh.”

  “But his parents, sister and her husband are.”

  “Who’s staying in the downstairs guestroom?” I ask before I can stop myself.

  He frowns. “Brynn and her husband.”

  “Okay, yeah, that’s a nice room,” I say, playing off the interest in it. From his confused reaction, I can see that he hasn’t been informed of Bo’s and my interlude there.

  “Anyway, I also want to apologize for actin’ like an ass the other day.” He rubs the back of his neck in that way men do when they’re bashful or embarrassed. In the barely there light cast by my citronella candle, I can see his shy smile and honest eyes.

  “You don’t have to.” I wave his guilt away.

  “Nah, I do. See, Jane explained how things happened. And while I don’t agree, I do feel for you. It’s just that I don’t like seeing Bo like this. Ever since he’s met you, he’s not his normal self. I think he’s got it bad for you.”

  I rub my eyes and leave them closed for a second, feeling so tired, and it’s not just because of the lateness of the day. “You love him a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, like he’s my brother. Before Jane, he and my dad were all I had. Look, I know you have a lot on your mind, big decisions…” There goes that word again. Decisions. “And if’n you choose Bo, I’ll love you like a sister. Hell, I sort of already saw you as one till I found out the truth.”

  “And if I don’t?” Because I just had to ask.

  “If you don’t, nothin’. We won’t ever see each other again, though, that much I can guarantee.” Nate gets up and starts to head in, but before he opens the sliding door into my kitchen, he turns back to me and says, “Cris, I’d really like to love you as a sister.” And with that, he leaves me outside with nothing but the sound of the creek and the hunting owls for company.

  35

  “W
hat’s wrong with your food?” my dad asks, watching me hold the cheeseburger he’d grilled begin to fall apart in my hands, I’ve held it for so long. “Even Mia’s almost done with hers.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Daddy. It’s fine, I’m just not very hungry. It’s this heartburn that’s flaring up,” I say, pulling out the little bottle of anti-acids I’ve started carrying around with me, and pop two of the chalky pale tablets into my mouth.

  “I bet it’s an ulcer,” he diagnoses.

  “Could be. And these watery eyes,” I say, annoyingly wiping my eyes and sniffling. “So sick of it!”

  “Have you been to the doctor?”

  “Nah, I just started taking an antihistamine yesterday, I hope that helps. But my stomach, I do need to schedule something because it doesn’t look like it’s going away.”

  My father watches me for a minute, with concern on his face. “Why don’t you go somewhere for a little bit, get your mind off things?”

  “I don’t really feel like going anywhere,” I tell my him. My dad had come to spend this lovely Sunday evening with us. He’d been wanting to see Mia, but Owen had taken her most of the day yesterday and had a daddy/daughter day, then this morning he came and made pancakes with her.

  I’m not going to complain; it is so good for Mia to see him on an almost daily basis. As far as she’s concerned, and it will remain until everything is officially settled down, Owen is simply going away a lot for work. He and I do well while we are with her. At first it was a little strange, it was like two mutes walking around each other in circles. Now things are flowing a little better. I even helped make breakfast.

  My dad knows everything now. He doesn’t like any of it, I can see that written all over his face any time we’ve talked about it. For one he doesn’t like that we had affairs. Two, he definitely doesn’t think we should separate. Well, I’ve told him I feel the same way, but I don’t know if he believes me. Maybe he thinks I am going down the same road my mom did. Who knows.

  “What about the grocery store? You need milk.”

  I frown. “I just got milk yesterday.”

  “Well, you have less than half a gallon.”

  “Oh.” I guess that would make sense, with the pancake making and all.

  “Go on. Give an Abuelito some time with his baby.”

  Setting my burger down on the paper plate, I get up from our patio table, nodding in agreement. “Maybe you’re right, I could use some time to clear my head.”

  “Can I come with you?” Mia asks.

  “You are staying with Abuelito and helping me pick out a good movie for us to watch,” he tells her and she claps.

  “All right, Daddy, you’ll be okay with her?”

  “Yup. Go. But do me a favor and shower and brush your teeth at least before you go.”

  I playfully scrunch my nose at him, then kiss him on the head and Mia on the cheek, leaving them chatting animatedly about school.

  Showering the grime off me, and brushing my teeth for the first time today already begins to lift my spirits some. Feeling a thousand times fresher, I leave the house with no real destination in mind.

  It is a lovely day, the sky is a deep blue overhead, fading to a lighter shade in the distance. It’s just the right amount of warm, where I could wear shorts with sneakers, and a short sleeve.

  The drive is quiet, no one in the backseat, no press for time. Sometimes I feel like I’m always in a rush, always somewhere to be. My mind has no time to process anything that’s happened to me, or even just shut down for a while and process nothing at all.

  That’s what I decide to do now. Shut it down. Not in the sense that I’ll fall asleep at the wheel, but in the sense that I don’t want to think about Owen, or our situation. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway, being that the ball is in his court.

  For about an hour I drive around aimlessly. I am paying attention to where I’m going, obviously. Stopping at red lights and stop signs, yielding. But at some point, I go into auto pilot, driving without paying attention to the names of streets or landmarks.

  So, it was quite a surprise to me when the car stops and I look around to find I’m parked in front of a familiar house. I blink in confusion of where I ended up. How did I get here?

  Maybe it was that I wandered for so long that the odds that I would end up in Huntersville were that great. Or maybe it was that at some point, the needs of the body overrule the rational mind, and it doesn’t give a shit about good judgement. All it knows is that primal instinct to mate with someone who is so positively matched, nothing else matters.

  Yes, we will say that’s what happened, because all my rational mind knows is that one minute I am walking out of my house, and the next the tires of my Civic are crunching over the gravel drive of his house.

  As if though my body senses his proximity, it comes aflame on its own, desire building like an inferno out of control, and only that man inside can put it out. Now that I’m here, there’s no turning back.

  Oh, I know this is a terrible idea. I am playing with fire. Still I don’t falter, so determined am I to ease this ache.

  I knock on his door and he answers it almost immediately. But where I feel that all-consuming need to throw myself on him and feel his heat again, he simply stands there, a look of indifference on his face.

  “Hi,” I say, biting my lower lip. “Can I come in?”

  He walks away, leaving me there to stare after him. Taking that as an invitation, I step inside and close the door softly behind me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, sitting down on his brown couch. “I thought you never wanted to see me again.”

  Looking around, I can’t believe it’s been months since I’ve been here. Everything is exactly as I remember.

  When I look to him, he’s watching me intently.

  “I was driving, and next thing I knew I was here,” I say.

  He looks slightly incredulous. “What does that mean? Are you here to stay?”

  I shake my head and whisper with uncertainty, “I don’t know.”

  “You should leave, then,” he says, his voice strained.

  “I don’t want to.”

  The thought of leaving is too much. I can’t. It has been too long since I’ve touched him, and I ache from it.

  Swallowing nervously, I do what I came here to do. Shaking hands lift my cotton shirt over my head, and pull down my shorts until they fall in a puddle at my feet.

  His breath catches as his eyes remain glued to my hands, following them as they unsnap my bra, and it too falls to the floor. He shifts in his seat when I take my panties off, his gaze focused on the dark triangle there.

  I can feel myself panting, trembling, even as I gather every bit of courage I can muster and take that first step forward. Then another and another until I am standing naked as the day I was born between his legs.

  And dammit if he still doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t look away either. If anything, he’s breathing as hard as I am, his hands twitching as he fights to keep them resting at his side.

  When I climb on him, he leans back to accommodate me, still not touching.

  “Bo,” I whisper, caressing his stubbled cheeks with the backs of my hands. “I need you. God knows I should stay away. I want to be stronger, but I’m just not.”

  I lean down to kiss him, his forehead, his cheeks and nose. All the while he remains unmoving. Even as I kiss his lips, and bring my breasts that I know he loves so much to his face, rub my core against him and moan, he does nothing. My boobs are just there, rubbing his cheeks, swinging in front of him, but he makes absolutely no effort to touch them. He’s just sitting there limply, unfeeling, while I am here, completely exposed in more way than one. Utterly vulnerable.

  For a horrifying moment, I realize the huge mistake that I’ve made. Suddenly I feel blood rush to my skin as I flush all over in embarrassment.

  So, I stop.

  When I look down into his eyes all I see is anger and pain. It serves as c
onfirmation that my attentions right now are not wanted.

  There is a very distinct sting that comes with any kind of rejection, but when it’s from someone you love, it’s all the more humiliating.

  Swallowing the thick knot burning in my throat, I nod to let him know I get it. This is a bad situation at the least. Awkwardly, I make to get off him.

  “Fuck!” I hear a moment before I can’t move because his hands are vises around my arms, and his lips are a white-hot press against my neck.

  I moan loudly because it hurts in that way something can when it touches your soul.

  He pulls away from me just long enough to see that he’s been as tormented by the distance between us as I have been. Unable to stand anymore of it, I bend down and kiss him, taking everything I can because I know I shouldn’t allow myself this sin ever again.

  And he responds with the same wild abandon, his hands rough as they pull my hair, forcing my head back to expose my throat. He nips at the soft skin, grazing me with his teeth in that way that drives me insane.

  His mouth travels further down, and he moans as he takes in one nipple and then the other. He lets go of my hair and I look down at him as he devours me.

  In one motion, Bo flips me and pushes me onto the couch. He sits over me, and with his hands spreads my knees. His eyes travel the length of me, taking in the sight of my naked body on full display. Even my pussy is splayed open for his gaze, my clit swollen and wet.

  His hands go to the backs of my knees as he slips down the couch, bringing his mouth only a few inches from my core.

  “I miss this, chère. I miss the taste of you.” With that he puts his lips onto me and I nearly come off the couch, but he holds me to him.

  I kneed my fingers through his thick hair as I gently pump my hips. As if the sight of his dark head between my legs wouldn’t be enough to undo me, his tongue is making quick work of a very sensitive nub that has been aching for this very thing.

  Two fingers enter me and I come before he has a chance to thrust them. The throbbing in my clitoris is hard and I cry out his name even though I can’t remember my own.